In this vibrant and ever-expanding world of cinema, it's rare that we ever get to experience something truly incredible in its concept and execution, something so amazing that it pushes an entire genre to new heights. That happened at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday night, as Gareth Evans' premiered his 2-1/2 hour sequel The Raid 2, and I believe he's pulled off something akin to The Dark Knight of action movies. It is a sequel that is much bigger, more ambitious, and considerably more epic in scope than the first, yet exceeds all expectations and achieves levels of legend in terms of martial arts action intertwined with story.

In my years of writing about cinema, it's only every so often that I get to experience something as historic as the screening that I sat through at Sundance on Tuesday. It will be an event of legend in years to come, for reasons that go beyond just the film itself. The cut of The Raid 2 that Gareth Evans screened at Sundance was a freshly finished 148-minute version that the MPAA has not had a chance to look at, meaning it was as brutal, relentless and insanely violent as it could possibly be. This film isn't for everyone, and I heard about many walk-outs from people who just couldn't handle the "disgusting" level of violence. But for those that can sit through this, it's an experience unlike any before, perhaps one of the best action movies ever made.

Collider posted a review. While their Matt Goldbert loves the action and gives it an A-, he did find it trying a bit too hard to cram in more story and characters, to the point that the lone good guy (Rama, the cop hero of the first film) often gets lost in the shuffle in favor of mass scale battles between characters you barely know.

NOTE: imho his review gets into too much plot, scene detail. If that sounds spoiler-ish, you might prefer to just read the recap I pasted in below.

The Raid 2 subscribes to the sequel school of “Bigger Is Better”, and since the action in the first movie could already be described as “insane”, “more insane” isn’t a great description. Evans has far surpassed the original in terms of action, and his attempt to match the scope of the sequel’s story with the size of the set pieces is admirable, although it ultimately ends up becoming a distraction. However, that’s a minor complaint because while I can point out the story’s shortcomings, I can’t deny the film’s pure, visceral impact. It’s been over two hours since I saw The Raid 2, and my blood is still pumping and my nerves are still vibrating.

Rating: A-

Now mind you, Roger Ebert as I recall gave The Raid one star and basically called it a sickeningly violent movie. I considered it a sickeningly fun violent movie. So you know, razor's edge difference. You probably already know if a sequel to a movie like that would appeal to you or not.

I'm eager to see it. I hope I don't need to go into D.C. to see it this time but would be happy to make a subway trip to see it again if I need to.

After reading more reviews from Sundance, it's pretty apparent the film in its current state is a "hard" NC-17 movie simply for over the top gore, including the occasional imploding head . It sounds very unlikely it can get North American distribution unless it's carved down into a hard R instead. Yeah, MPAA sucks, but it's what distributors have to work with.

I'd like to see it get wider distribution than the first film here, which as I remember it never really got a wide release here in the U.S. I hadda see it at an art house type place in Washington DC and it hardly got out to The Burbs at all.

The 1st film didn't get a screening in my city and I have no expectation of this making the silver screen either. I was mildly surprised when the 1st made it to Netflix. This sounds very promising and I'll almost certainly buy the BRD.